Thutopele among top three performing schools in Ekurhuleni South

Thutopele Secondary School went from receiving an award for the most improved school in Ekurhuleni for the 2019 academic calendar to being in the top three best-performing schools in Ekurhuleni South.

The school obtained a 92.81 per cent matric pass rate for 2020, with at least 61 bachelors, 60 diplomas and 80 higher certificates.

Thutopele had 146 learners who enrolled for matric and only 139 of those learners wrote all their exams, the remaining seven learners did not write all subjects.

The school’s principal, Sengi Kubkeka, said he was numb when he received the results because the school is known for being an underperforming school.

“It fell under 58 per cent, it was a joke of the township but now with these results, we are competing with other schools.

“Some of these learners come from informal settlements and others come to school without any food; some of us have adopted some learners to help them,” said Kubkeka.

The school received an award for the most improved school after Kubkeka’s first full term. He joined the school in July 2018, and the school obtained 58 per cent that year.

With support from the senior management team (SMT), the results improved the following year to an 85.6 per cent pass rate.

Reflection on the school’s improvement

Kubkeka said in 2018, he had to implement a few changes to improve the school’s performance.

“I had to empower the SMTs and there was a rotation of learners. I instead enforced the rotation of educators so that learners must be stationed. That gave me a problem because we had to quarrel with the educators, it got to an extent of having some of them attend a disciplinary hearing.

“Then in 2019, the learners were stationed, and we had an SMT that worked very hard, our results improved,” he said.

He said had it not been for destructions caused by Covid-19 the school would have obtained 100 per cent.

The improved results were based on the dedication of Grade 12 teachers and the support from the SMT, the non-teaching staff who cooked for the learners during the weekends and the executive of the School Governing Body (SGB) who were at the school every weekend and the financial support to pay tutors.

“Above all, our school intervention programme (SIP) used to be combined with Sijabulile Secondary School and we made it a point that we take our learners and manage them.

“So, we had our SIP because if ever there are two schools, the site manager thereof will be biased towards his learners. It is natural.

“We had to take responsibility, hence we were here during weekends and leaving in the afternoon at around 5-6pm. Since we reopened in June, we never had a single holiday,” said Kubkeka.

The list of the top three performing township schools in Ekurhuleni

Ekurhuleni South

1. Lethukuthula Secondary School – 95.88 per cent.
2. Buhle Park Secondary School – 95.88 per cent.
3. Thuto Pele Secondary School – 92.81 per cent.

Ekurhuleni North

1. Charlotte Maxeke Secondary School – 93.67 per cent.
2. Phomolong Secondary School – 91.3 per cent.
3. Unity Secondary School – 90.88 per cent.